Live and Let Di

Say it in Pictures

A picture paints a thousand words and all that...and sometimes you need the picture because as Marvin Gaye so brilliantly put it, " People say believe half of what you see, Son, and none of what you hear." So I will let the following pictures speak for themselves...or please feel free to comment and submit your own take on the pictures:

1. This pictures was captured by my 11 year old son (some things make a Mom so proud!) on Saturday during a quadruple overtime football game that had the nerve to delay the televising of the pretty-much-nobody-but-Seminoles-and-Gators-cared Florida vs. Florida State game:

[Insert your inappropriate, yet witty, caption here]

2. From this morning's newspaper...whoever has personally experienced or experienced via one's child the utter terror of being dressed in red velvet and placed on the knee of a fat guy with a beard will know innately that this is just wrong:

[Insert your expression of incredulity, disgust or copy of letter to Child Protective Services here]

Di

Thursday Thirteen (Vol. 57)

 

 

Thirteen Things I Learned Going to My First Dart Tournament Last Night

My friends, Kim & Jim, and various and sundry friends, family, in-laws, exes, etc. (we'll get to that later) play in a weekly dart league. Last night was the finals, so I decided to go along and watch. Kim had told me a little bit about the games but when she did, my eyes glazed over like hers do when I talk about golf. So, to say the least, it was educational:


1. There are eight teams in each division in our area.

2. Yes, there are DIVISIONS of dart teams...I mean, this is like the AFC and NFC in Pro Football, the ACC and SEC in College Football. This is serious.

3. Well, it's as serious as any other sport that is played while the players are consuming large quantities of beer.

4. Just as I would not show up for a golf tournament and just use a set of clubs from the pro shop, a dart team member would not show up at a dart tournament without his/her own special (presumably very expensive) darts. One would never use the lame, overused darts that the casual player at the bar might use on any other night.

5. This particular division would have Richard Dawson's head spinning if they starred in Family Feud. To understand, one would have to have one of those name and generation guides provided in the front of long Russian Novels. On Kim's team is her husband, her brother, her sister-in-law (married to another brother) and her neighbor's cousin. On the opposing team was Kim's first husband (father of her two sons). If the darts don't interest you, trying to figure out all the familial connections will.

6. They play one game called 301. The object is to score up to 301 and then back down to zero...exactly zero...actually a double that brings you exactly down to zero. This game requires that your team have one or two players who can...

7. Do lots of arithmetic. Subtracting is not easy despite what we tell our first graders. Some teams use their token non-drinker in this roll and some teams hope that their drunkest player will at least err on the side of his/her own team. In addition to math skills, scorekeepers must be...

8. Brave souls with quick reflexes, as the scoreboards are conveniently located on THE SAME WALL as the dart boards.

9. 301 requires that each player "double in" and "double out" which means you can't even begin to score until you put one of your darts into the teeny tiny area on the outer ring of the dartboard.

10. Each team has its own home bar...so there is such a thing as "home bar advantage". But they aren't just playing with the normal dartboard that normally hangs on the bar's wall...they have "special" dartboards so that it levels the playing field and all teams are using the same standard dartboard regardless of which bar you are playing at. Kind of like you wouldn't be allowed to have a 110 yard football field at one stadium and a 97 yard field at another stadium.

11. There is another game called Cricket...no, not THAT Cricket that they play in England and wear fancy white clothes for. This involves getting your dart to land on certain numbers a certain number of times before your opponent does. Cricket requires...


12. Much less math skill. I don't know this to be true, but I surmised that the reason Cricket is played AFTER 301 is that by this point in the match, no one, even the non-drinkers, can handle all that subtraction. The score is kept primarily by x's and o's indicating how many one has scored on each number and extra numbers (which require only adding, not subtracting).

13. It was lots of fun to watch. It made me want to learn to play darts. But I know that I can't be on the dart team unless I marry one of Kim's brothers (who are both married), have an affair with her ex-husband (and sorry, the pony-tail look just doesn't grab me anymore) or BE REALLY GOOD AT DARTS! Since the former two don't seem likely and the latter seems bloody impossible, I guess I'll just sit on the sidelines and play the occasional amateur game at the Cantina!

Di

An Ocean of Air

An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere by Gabrielle Walker was sent to me to read and review by Anna Suknov of FSB Associates. Somehow they tapped into that area of my eclectic reading choices that wants to know about (but not TOO much about) lots of different things. Maybe they saw my review of The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug.  Or maybe they have heard about how I was mesmerized by The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John Barry.

I used to feature myself as a fiction reader who would only go astray for the occasional memoir which read like a novel...and as the years went by, many have been exposed as more novel than memoir...but I digress. I can tell you exactly when it happened...my transition. On September 1, 1997 I finished Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer. The night before  was a Sunday and although I did not want to put the book down, I had to get to sleep in order to wake up at 6 a.m. to go to  work the next day. The next day, during my lunch hour, I walked over to the nearby bookstore, picked up a copy of the book and sat down on the floor in the aisle and finished it. When I finished it, I immediately turned it over and started reading it again. It was at that moment that I knew there was more to non-fiction than I had been aware of and decided to branch out.

An Ocean of Air feeds that side of my brain. I want to know about things. I want to know about things that are true. But I don't want to have to have a Ph.D in chemistry, physics or microbiology to know about what is going on in the world or how things came to be. Gabrielle Walker provides just the right balance of history, science  and some gossipy personal stuff to give the reader fascinating information and keep the reader fascinated with the foibles and  idiosyncrasies of the scientists who have contributed to our understanding of the composition of the air we breathe and the atmosphere that surrounds the earth.

As I read, I couldn't help but periodically quote from the book to my husband, ignorantly studying football stats on ESPN.com beside me in bed. It was fascinating. Page one places the reader in 1960 with Joe Kittinger in a 20 mile free fall from the edge of the atmosphere to the surface of the earth. From there we move back and forth in time from the "heresy" of Galileo and his contemporaries who  were terrified to publish their findings lest they be put to death.

The book explores the vicissitudes of winds and weather, even quoting Mark Twain and making me think of my BF Amy in Boston, when he said of a "typical New England day: "Probably nor'east to sou'west winds, varying to the southard and westard and easterd, and points between; high and low barometer, sweeping round from place to place; probably ares of rain, snow, hail and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes with thunder and lightning." Sounds about as definitive as any weather forecast I've heard lately.

Walker captivates with information that one might never know, like  how and why did the six mainland casualties of WWII occur and what does this have to do with our "Ocean of Air". I'll let you find out in the book. What inventor of a scourge to the ozone, the dangers of which weren't discovered until the early 1970's, was awarded "almost every major prize in chemistry" with the exception of the Nobel Prize?

The book makes reference to issues of global warming and the environmental impact of man's inventions and interventions, but has no political agenda. Interspersed with the science and the individuals are more notorious incidents such as the sinking of the Titanic whose wireless operators used their own version of the language our kids are using on AIM...GNOM for "Good Night Old Man" or GTH for "Go to Hell". Although the wireless, a novel invention, was mostly used for well-heeled passengers to send costly messages home, when the Titanic struck the iceberg,  the wireless operators immediatley signaled "CQD" which meant "seek you" or "attention all stations" and the D for "distress". This sign was eventually converted to the more familiar SOS because it was easier to recognize in Morse Code. And the ultimate in irony is that Marconi, a key figure in the development of the technology that ended up saving so many of the passengers, was himself scheduled to be on the Titanic but postponed his trip due to paperwork he needed to catch up on.

I am not giving you too much information...there is so much more in this book to read, absorb and marvel at!

For some reason, I received two copies of An Ocean of Air, so FSB Associates has given me the green light to raffle the other copy off to one lucky blog reader. You don't have to do anything, come up with anything creative...just leave a comment and on December 3 I will hold a random drawing involving Colonel Mustard, a candlestick and the conservatory. The lucky winner will simply need to provide to me (privately of course) his/her address to which I will happily mail a new, unread copy of An Ocean of Air.

Ode to...my husband???

A few weeks ago my marriage counselor friend John asked me if I could name five things that I love about my husband. I think he had heard me bitching about one thing or another one time too many. I came up with my five...and none of them was at all domestic-related or handyman-ish. As a matter of fact, when my kids were little they learned to say, "Ask Mom to fix this with her toolbox."

This picture is from when I gave him an apron and chef's hat for his birthday knowing that his domestic contributions would be limited to occasionally grilling.

Recently we moved back to North Carolina, and if you are just tuning in, you will find out that we are living in a rental house while the small (I mean really tiny) house we had is moved (yes, I sold my house on craigslist!) and our new house built on the lot. The biggest excitement lately was that I had to buy the new washer and dryer for the new house ahead of time because we needed a washer and dryer for the rental and the washer and dryer for the old house were old and not worth moving. I have waxed rhapsodic about the new appliances here.

While my husband was out of town, I decided to set up his office for him. I got all his boxes of office stuff and set it up on the Tierney-donated dining room table which was now to serve as his temporary desk. I put his pens and pencils in a cup, placed his stapler at the perfect right angle to his legal pad, set up his laptop docking station, connected his printer and even found an unused lamp to light his working area.

But this was nothing compared to what HE has been doing. I don't know if it was the five months that he spent as a bachelor in Florida while the kids and I settled in here or if he got knocked over the head while trying to move furniture, but he's a changed man. And I LOVE IT!!!! He's been doing the laundry...could be the new cool laundry machines...but he's doing it! He's been straightening up. He's been all over the kids to get them to not leave their stuff all over the place. And he's been hounding them to straighten up their rooms. It's nothing short of spectacular.

And here's the kicker...it makes ME more focused on these things...not because I don't want to be outdone by him. But all of a sudden, I don't feel like I am the only person who gives a s*** if the laundry is done, if the house is cluttered, etc. It's Our Team Against Clutter!!! I can't wait until he walks into his closet and sees that I organized his dress shirts, suites, pants, jackets, t-shirts and golf shirts!

So John, my dear marriage counselor friend, next time you hear me bitching about my husband, you can remind me of this...# 6 on the list of things I love about my husband!

Di

Indie Love

Finally getting around to reading my e-mail I found a lovely note from the people at the American Booksellers Association and their blog Omnibus. They were kind enough to mention my recent blogs about taking advantage of the wonderful offerings from our local independent bookstores.

The contest to which they refer is over and OMG!!! I forgot to post the winner! Congratulations to Jen from calling dr. bombay who should probably have received her $25 gift certificate from Quail Ridge Books by now and is hopefully spending it on HERSELF and not on holiday gifts from others. (Yes, in the never-ending battle to extend the holidays for as long as possible, Hanukkah will be kicking in just around the day you consume that last turkey sandwich.)

Anyway, they have invited me to become an affiliate which means that in addition to posting book reviews (a task in which I am hopelessly behind, having four books waiting to be blogged about), I will be able to link my readers to independent bookstore sites to purchase the books. And if you are kind enough to use my link for your purchase, I will get some kind of compensation (a percentage of the sale, I believe, haven't read the terms yet). Since Karen of verbatim, my icon of grammatical correctness as well as blog ethics, has recently sold out to become an affiliate for Amazon, I feel reassured that I have made the right ethical and moral choice.

Although I haven't read the details, I can assure you that I will not get rich from this relationship. Chances are that a year's worth of percentages on sales won't buy me a boob lift, let alone the tummy tuck that I want to go with it. However, as small as the compensation may be, I pledge that 25% of the proceeds will be donated to Books for Kids:

"Books for Kids (a non-profit organization) is devoted to making books available           to kids at no cost and to promote the love of reading in the children           of North Carolina. Of course, that takes money on the front end from           people who share our mission. This organization seeks to raise funds           to provide books for children working through a variety of qualified           groups. The Salvation Army, YMCA, numerous churches, shelters, orphanages           as well as various state agencies are examples of organizations Books           for Kids might work with."

The Board Members of Books for Kids include: Elizabeth Edwards, Nancy Olson (owner of Quail Ridge Books), along with noted Southern authors Margaret Maron and Kaye Gibbons and a host of other local philanthropists.

So, when I formally announce my affiliation (black tie optional), I will not be as demure as sweet Karen ...I will shamelessly shill for independent bookstores and for my readers to buy through my website to support Books for Kids...and let's face it, the other 75% is going right back to Quail Ridge Books to buy more books to read and (eventually) review.

Di

Thursday Thirteen (Vol. 56)

Thirteen Random Songs from my iPod
(topic shamelessly stolen from Karen at verbatim who does this weekly)

OK...I'm afraid that this is going to show how absolutely mundane and ordinary my iPod collection is, but I promised it would be random:

1. That's Not Her Style by Billy Joel from Storm Front. With this album, the classic Billy Joel of my teen years had turned into the Billy Joel who was married to Christy Brinkley. We saw this concert at the Miami Arena in seats that felt like they were in the next county. But with binoculars, we could see Christy and Alexa (who had headphones on to protect her little ears).

2. Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash from Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. This was released in 1968 when my husband was a toddler. He "discovered" Johnny Cash several years ago, before the movie, and has been a fan ever since. You just have to love "the man in black" even if you did see his variety show in the early '70's.

3. Love and Marriage by Frank Sinatra from The Very Good Years. I'm sure this was released long before my husband discovered Sinatra after visiting a friend in Hoboken, home to the quintessential crooner. But most of our generation knows it as the opening them to Married with Children.

4. Somewhere in the Sun by Kenny Chesney from Be as You Are: Songs from an Old Blue Chair. There's just something about Kenny that makes you feel like you know him and you could be hanging out with him, sipping a tropical drink and talking about Key Lime Pie or Guitars and Tiki Bars. Plus he's adorable!

5. Linda Paloma by Jackson Browne fromThe Pretender. There's something ironic about the particular song since Jackson Browne performed at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in late August of 1980, during the first week of my freshman year of college and my sister LINDA made sure to call me and tell me how great the concert was!






6. Getcha Back by The Beach Boys
Sounds of Summer, released 2003 when they could hardly be referred to as "boys" anymore. But come on, admit it...you have SOMETHING from the Beach Boys on your iPod...or at least you know most of the words to Little Old Lady from Pasadena!






7. Forever and For Always by Shania Twain
Up!, released 2002. And Shania will forever remind me of the summer of 1999 when we moved to Raleigh and had her CD Come On Over playing over and over in my car. My son, then 3 1/2 called "That Don't Impress Me Much" the "mudge" song...I think he was in a Henry & Mudge reading phase.






8. Faded Love by Patsy Cline from Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits

I admit, I didn't love Patsy Cline until I saw the movie Sweet Dreams. But once I fell in love with her amazing voice and her raw emotional spirit, I've never heard anything by her that I didn't love. This is a great song!

9. Prelude/Angry Young Man by Billy Joel from Turnstiles

Billy Joel in the Turnstiles/Piano Man/Stranger years is the voice of high school for me and just about everyone my age. Angry Young Man is one of those wordy quick songs that a bunch of 40-somethings can sing along with and REMEMBER EVERY SINGLE WORD AND INFLECTION!!! But forget it if our kids ask for help with geometry proofs.

10. Miami 2017/I've Seen the Lights Go Out by Billy Joel from Turnstiles.

Hey...I said it was random and there's a lot of Billy Joel on my iPod!

11. Me Wise Magic by Fan Haley from The Best of Van Halen

This is there for my husband. We have to take stuff from my iTunes and put it into small enough playlists for his iPod Shuffle.

12. Good Lovin' by The Rascals from The Big Chill

The Big Chill was a movie about another generation that captured our generation and gave us a glimpse into our future. As a matter of fact, I remember having a "Pre-Big Chill Party" as we ended our senior year of college...no one had to commit suicide to precipitate it!

13. Pump It by The Black Eyed Peas from Monkey Business

This is embarrassing!!! But I did promise random and my kids do occasionally download stuff into my iTunes library. I can't be held responsible!

Political Thanksgiving Blessing

I am NOT going to do my Thursday Thirteen about Thanksgiving. I am NOT going to list all the things I am thankful for. I am NOT going to mindlessly follow the pack in this regard...I am going to mindlessly purloin someone else's idea from last week and use that.

But this Thanksgiving puts me in mind of Thanksgiving 2000. That year, we were considering attending my 20th Class Reunion in Utica, NY, in November...me and my Miami-bred husband. So a few weeks before Christmas, my husband surprised me with a trip to Paris, leaving on Thanksgiving Day! Tough decision...sipping wine and eating chocolate croissants for several days or going to hang out with a bunch of people I didn't like much 20 years ago. The wine was great. The food was incredible. And no, that WASN'T at my Class Reunion!

While we were in Paris, the world was watching as the Bush/Gore non-election was still carrying on. Each was claiming victory. Judges were involved. Florida was the culprit (having spent about 17 years of my life in Florida, I say, "Why is it always Florida?"....and then I remember the 17 years I spent there and I know why).

When we returned from Paris and work, the decision was still not made. I was talking to a young guy at my office who had gone home for Thanksgiving. As the family gathered around the table, his 90-ish grandmother solemnly offered to say the blessing. As they held hands and bowed their heads, the frail, wizened matriarch intoned:

"As we gather together as a family this Thanksgiving Day in the first year of the new millennium, let us count our blessings...

and recount them!"

I can't wait to be a matriarch!

Di

 

Christmas Sarcasm Starts Too Early!

I think the blogosphere has unanimously agreed that the Christmas decorations and music before Thanksgiving is insulting and annoying. Most of us can handle one DAY at a time...don't try to give us two HOLIDAYS at a time. Today I was inspired by Rockstar Mommy who not only affirmed my misery at being assaulted by Christmas the day after Halloween, but guilted me into figuring out how to adjust the settings on my iPhone so that it doesn't scream "Sent from my iPhone" (read, nyah nyah, I got an iPhone and you didn't!) and instead reads an innocuous "Di".

Last week when I had the bad judgment to go to the mall on Veteran's Day, I almost started a melee at American Eagle when some a**hole decided that instead of one line feeding to two cashiers, he would just jump behind the person at the cashier on the right and make it two lines. When I politely pointed out that the line was back here, he snidely said, "Merry Christmas". A minute or so later, I was called to the cashier on the left, expeditiously completed my transaction leaving no one behind me in line. So the cashier on the left called over to Mr. Merry Christmas and said, "May I help you over here?" I turned to her and said, "No...he told me he wants to be in THAT line!"

Later in the same week, I e-mailed my friends to say NO, NO, a thousand times NO, we should not go to our club's lame Christmas Party. One friend was waffling because the date happened to coincide with her son's 7th birthday. So, in order to really drive my point home, I expounded:

OK, so you know how much I HATE kids' birthday parties? All those kids running around screaming? And you know how much I hate the mall?

I would rather go to your son's birthday party at the mall during Christmas season than go to the club party. How about that?

My friend e-mailed back, "Merry F***-ing Christmas". What does it say about me that I got two sarcastic "Merry Christmas" greetings BEFORE THANKSGIVING!!!

Di

Sometimes someone else just says it better...

 

Sent to me by my sister, Linda. I don't know who should be given the sign or photo credit...BRILLIANT!!!

Thursday Thirteen (Vol. 55)

Thirteen Reasons Why I Can't Do Thursday Thirteen This Week:

1. My to-do list includes things that, if not done, will result in my house building not starting on time!

2. You need me on that wall!

3. Husband in town...'nuff said.

4. I hate being predictable.

5. I'll think about that tomorrow!

6. I have never done anything 55 weeks in a row...should this really be the first?

7. There's a "diabolical" Sudoku that won't release me.

8. I see dead people.

9. It's raining...no really, here in drought-ridden NC, it's raining. And rainy days compel me to lay on the couch and read a book, snuggled up in a comforter.

10. I vant to be alone!

11. Visions of pumpkin pie are dancing in my head.

12. "People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime." This has nothing to do with anything, but my friend Vicky sent it to me in an e-mail discussing friendship and I haven't had a chance to use it...and it deserves to be used!!!!

13. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!

Di